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Healthenly Launches - Enabling Patients and Caregivers to Help Each Other

[May 21, 2020]

Healthenly Launches - Enabling Patients and Caregivers to Help Each Other

SEATTLE and WILLIAMSBURG, Mass., May 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As the COVID-19 pandemic limits access to regular medical facilities and professionals, Healthenly.org has launched to provide a free space for peer-to-peer health guidance and knowledge-sharing. The platform enables people with experience as patients or caregivers to contribute their knowledge to health conversations across a diverse set of acute and chronic diseases and wellness topics.

Healthenly members can ask and answer questions, vote on content to make the highest-quality contributions rise to the top, and build reputation through participation and positive contributions to the community. The platform allows contributors to become Healthangels, serving as beacons for specific diseases or medical situations. Healthangels can participate in small, private teams to provide guidance and wisdom to patients and caregivers who want a higher level of support.

"People with health knowledge and experience should have a no-nonsense place to contribute that knowledge in support of others," said Nicolas Boillot, Healthenly co-founder. "Several people I've known have wrestled with chronic and acute conditions, and I've watched as they and their communities gained an enormous amount of valuable knowledge. Putting that knowledge to use for others can help create new meaning from difficult lessons."

Yale Professor of Psychology Dr. Laurie Santos notes in her popular podcast, The Happiness Lab, "Doing nice things for others can help us feel really good." Santosexplains that behavioral studies show that when doing good for others, we "help the people who need it most while improving our own mental health and building communities of trust around us."

"It takes time and energy to manage a chronic health condition," said Cindy Tenner, a new Healthangel on Healthenly. "I have been dealing with a complex cardiac issue for many years. After diagnosis and as symptoms evolved, I could have used the support and ideas of others who were knowledgeable and ahead of me in the journey. Now, Healthenly is here to provide this to individuals with newly diagnosed illnesses and those coping with ongoing conditions. I'm glad to be a Healthangel and mentor to others who might benefit from my experience."

"We designed this community to create an opportunity for patients and caregivers with hard-won health lessons to guide others," said Deirdre Tomlinson, Healthenly co-founder. "While this cannot replace professional medical care, it can fill a meaningful gap as patients face a consolidating, and increasingly specialized, health care system with shorter office visits and fewer primary care physicians."

About Healthenly - Healthenly, LLC, is a Massachusetts-based company providing a platform for health and wellness conversations. Healthenly also produces the Healing Together podcast, which offers essential health conversations with patients, caregivers, medical professionals, and alternative healthcare providers.